Category Archives: Pen Stores

I got some Lamy Turquoise cartridges on a whim from Amazon. They were $4.50 and I think I added them in to some other order. You get 5 cartridges for that price so it’s not a bad deal if you have a Lamy fountain pen. It’s a terrible deal if you don’t have a Lamy fountain pen since the cartridges are proprietary. I happen to have so many Safaris and Al-Stars that I literally don’t know how many I have. I can usually put my hands on at least five at any one time. They are great for doing reviews because you can just change nibs on the same pen to see how an ink performs for different nibs.

Anyway, the Lamy turquoise is a really intense blue. In a wet writer it is a deep, clear blue. In a dry writer or an extra fine or fine nib, the color is a lighter, more traditional turquoise color. I like this color in both instances so it’s like having two colors for the price of one. This is also one of those colors that shades wildly in some pens and on some papers and not at all in other pens or on other papers. I have one Lamy where the feed has really generous flow, in this pen the color was just like the color from the 1.5mm calligraphy nib. The exact same nib on a pen with a stingier feed gave the lighter turquoise color.

As a lefty, one of the most important aspects of an ink is how fast it dries. This ink isn’t going to win any speed records but it is noticeably faster than most inks. It is water resistant when dry. I didn’t show this on the scan but I’m always drinking something in my office and writing, so trust me, I know. The paper I’ve been using lately is Rhodia or super cheap copy paper (I work at a library where every penny counts). The paper in the scans for this review is Rhodia.

As an aside, my normal ink pusher supplier GouletPens now carries these cartridges, too. Same price but I love dealing with Rachel and Brian so I’m giving them a little plug. This shop is where I’ll be buying my next box of cartridges.

Tallahassee is a smallish town. We only have one real mall and even the Macy’s and Dillard’s at that mall have pretty generic merchandise. Generally, I don’t have real high hopes for cool stuff here. Imagine my surprise when I happened upon the Utrecht store in town. I had seen it a couple of times before and decided to stop in and see what it had to offer.

There was no fountain pen ink but they did have dip pen sets and calligraphy (India) ink. They also had a wide variety of Rhodia and Paperchase products. *Full disclosure* I don’t like Paperchase products. I’ve been told that they are fountain pen friendly but they are just too ornate and fiddly for me. Rhodia on the other hand are sheer perfection. I am pretty much exclusively into the orange. I occasionally buy a black Rhodia product but always regret it and end up wishing that I had purchased the orange. The paper is gorgeous and sets off my fountain pen inks beautifully. Even though I’m left handed and often smudge inks that dry slower on Rhodia paper, I still love the Rhodia brand. I generally buy my Rhodia pads from Brian Goulet at Goulet Pens but thought that I could avoid shipping charges by buying from this store. Alas, that is not to be.

How to put this? The staff at this store is straight up crazy. The first time I entered, they were threatening some random student who was upset that the store wouldn’t take her credit card since their credit card machine wasn’t working. They told her to come back in two weeks. Two Weeks!!! So I went in today, hoping that they had this fixed and walked past a girl about to make a delivery. She shouted as she left, “I can call him Sam or Douche! Which do you prefer?” on her way out. The other lady was trying to get her to call him Mr. Something or Other but clearly that wasn’t working. I almost left right there but was willing to do some extra work to get my Rhodia. So I bought a 4 x 6 case and a smaller (don’t remember the size case) and refills. On my way out I noticed that the refills I’d bought for the 4 x 6 case were in fact 5 x 5. So I tried to return them. Tried being the operative word. I was asked for the pin on my debit card several times. All along I asked if I was being double or triple billed. Finally, I was given my refund in cash but I have no security that I haven’t been re-billed for these items. I left. When I spoke to my mom just after leaving she asked that I never go back… and check my card for the next few days.